* * * * *

In the morning, before I was awake, my companion arrived at the hotel, and, going to his room, opened the door connecting it with mine.  Coming out of my slumber with that curious and not altogether pleasant sense of being stared at, I found his eyes fixed upon me, and noticed immediately about him the air of virtuous superiority which is assumed by all who have risen early, whether they have done so by choice or have been shaken awake.

“Hello,” I said.  “Had breakfast?”

“No.  I thought we could breakfast together if you felt like getting up.”

Though the phraseology of this remark was unexceptionable, I knew what it meant.  What it really meant was:  “Shame on you, lying there so lazy after sunup!  Look at me, all dressed and ready to begin!”

I arose at once.

For all that I don’t like to get up early, it recalled old times, and was very pleasant, to be away with him again upon our travels; to be in a strange city and a strange hotel, preparing to set forth on explorations.  For he is the best, the most charming, the most observant of companions, and also one of the most patient.

That is one of his greatest qualities—­his patience.  Throughout our other trip he always kept on being patient with me, no matter what I did.  Many a time instead of pushing me down an elevator shaft, drowning me in my bath, or coming in at night and smothering me with a pillow, he has merely sighed, dropped into a chair, and sat there shaking his head and staring at me with a melancholy, ruminative, hopeless expression—­such an expression as may come into the face of a dumb man when he looks at a waiter who has spilled an oyster cocktail on him.

All this is good for me.  It has a chastening effect.

Therefore in a spirit happy yet not exuberant, eager yet controlled, hopeful yet a little bit afraid, I dressed myself hurriedly, breakfasted with him (eating ham and eggs because he approves of ham and eggs), and after breakfast set out in his society to obtain what—­despite my walk of the night before—­I felt was not alone my first real view of Baltimore, but my first glimpse over the threshold of the South:  into the land of aristocracy and hospitality, of mules and mammies, of plantations, porticos, and proud, flirtatious belles, of colonels, cotton, chivalry, and colored cooking.

CHAPTER III

WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET

    Here, where the climates meet,
    That each may make the other’s lack complete—­

    —­SIDNEY LANIER.

Because Baltimore was built, like Rome, on seven hills, and because trains run under it instead of through, the passing traveler sees but little of the city, his view from the train window being restricted first to a suburban district, then to a black tunnel, then to a glimpse upward from the railway cut, in which the station stands.  These facts, I think, combine to leave upon his mind an impression which, if not actually unfavorable, is at least negative; for certainly he has obtained no just idea of the metropolis of Maryland.